Mountain-grown Organic Roasted Bancha - The mountains at rest

The Tea Crane

$1250

Quantity

Bancha employs that more fully-grown tea-leaf which is too mature, and has therefore become too bitter, for use in producing high-quality sencha, and is harvested later; such leaf is first processed just as for sencha – by means of a combination of steaming, rolling and drying – but is then stored until it is required, whereupon it is roasted immediately before packaging and shipping.

This treatment not only alters and improves flavor; it also breaks down caffeine content; and, as a result, bancha may justly be recommended as not only a satisfyingly-uncloying daytime thirst-quencher, but also a soothing nightcap.

The Culture of the Tea Mountains

Over the past few years, the abandonment of taxing-to-cultivate tea-plantations long situated on the slanted slopes of Nara’s tea-mountains has increased. The Tea Mountains are a quintessential embodiment of childhood in that particular part of the Nara countryside and an essential characteristic of the traditional landscape of the farm villages. Due not only to the contribution of the Tea Mountains to agricultural society, but also to their public appeal and their versatility, their cultural value is perceived as being great. More so recently, many farmers suffer from harm inflicted by wild boars, deer and other wild animals. It is believed that the abandonment of cultivation is one of the main reasons for this to happen. The producer states that with what is within his power, he will aim to protect and maintain the Culture of the Tea Mountains in Nara.